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Tonight's editor: patrickz
All views expressed by today's editor do not necessarily represent those of eKos or eKos listed diarists.ss
In tonight's Editor's Choice, we highlight an excellent, colorful new series by matching mole on biodiversity: A More Ancient World. The latest piece was on "Measuring Oil Impact in the Gulf".
Gulf ecosystems need more study. Surprisingly, for such a large area that is close to major population centers very few areas of the gulf have been the subject of long term studies. Two issues arise out of this. First, with areas being studied, the oil was unlikely to hit those areas (as it turns out, back in May when most of these people geared up to start studies they assumed, like everyone else, that the oil would be arriving along much of the northern Gulf coast within weeks). Time after time during the conference someone would half in jest ruefully note that they had gathered a bunch of data on a site in preparation for the oil and then the oil never arrived.
<--- Garden by Dude Crush
2010 has been a bad year for coral.
That's Mark Eakin, coordinator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch. It's worth listening to the whole interview, but here is the problem in a nutshell:
When you have high temperatures, in conjunction with normal high light conditions, the photosynthetic apparatus in the algae starts to poison the coral. They’ll spit them out into the water. When they do this, they lose their color, look white, which is why they’re called bleached. If that persists for a long time, it can cause the corals to die.
Eakin said corals can recover from bleaching, but bleaching has become more frequent over the past decade and reefs have little time to grow back. He said that the unusually high temperatures in 2010 is due to a combination of El Nino followed by La Nina, and an overall warming trend caused by climate change.
Abnormally high temperatures in the Western Caribbean this summer have taken their toll:
Although the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued an advisory in July announcing above-average sea surface temperatures in the wider Caribbean region, there had been no clear indication of increased sea temperatures in Panama and the western Caribbean until late August-early September.
Scientists and local dive operators first noticed coral bleaching in the waters surrounding Isla Colon in Panama's Bocas del Toro province in July. Smithsonian staff scientist Nancy Knowlton and colleagues documented an extensive bleaching event in late September. Station personnel recorded an extreme sea water temperature of 32 degrees C. Normal temperatures at this time of year are closer to 28 degrees C. This warming event currently affects the entire Caribbean coast of Panama from Kuna-Yala to Bocas del Toro and has also been reported at sites in Costa Rica.
An extensive coral reef monitoring network in Panama, established over a decade ago by staff scientist Héctor M. Guzmán of STRI and partially funded by the Nature Conservancy, consists of 33 sites along both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of the Isthmus, with 11 sites in the Bocas del Toro area. As of Oct. 3, 95 percent of the seafloor at the Bocas del Toro sites had been checked for bleaching. Coral mortality was limited to shallow areas near Isla Colon and a semi-lagoon area in Bocas del Toro, which is considered to be particularly vulnerable to bleaching as water circulation there is slow and temperatures tend to rise quickly. Researchers expect to have a complete report of the state of the coral reefs in several weeks.
While certain corals show resilience to rising temperatures and lower ocean pH, a new study shows that this adaptation is limited:
The research shows, for the first time, that while hard corals can take up from the environment new stress-tolerant algae that provide critical nutrients, the coral may not be able to sustain the relationship with these algae over a long period, a process known as symbiosis.
The findings may mean that certain types of coral will not be able to adapt rapidly enough to survive global warming, says the study's lead author, Mary Alice Coffroth, PhD, UB professor of geological sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences.
And even as corals are threatened by rising levels of CO2, they are helping us understand the changes we are bringing about:
Researchers looking at corals in the western tropical Pacific Ocean have found records linking a profound shift in the depth of the division between warm surface water and colder, deeper water traceable to recent global warming.
The finding is the first real evidence supporting what climate modelers have been predicting as the effects of global climate change on the subsurface ocean circulation.
The report by researchers from Ohio State University and the University of Toronto was published in the latest online edition of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
WarrenS made a New Year's Resolution to write a letter advocating climate action every day. The result is over two hundred letters to congresspeople, newspapers, President Obama, and more. Warren has even had letters published in the New York Times and the Boston Globe.
Learn Warren's letter writing technique here. Be sure to steal his stuffand visit his blog.
Month 10, Day 15: Yet Another Installment of “Why Capitalism Sucks.”
The Wall Street Journal never misses an opportunity to mislead.
A fairly even-handed discussion of the most recent round of climate negotiations was derailed by a paragraph of heavy-handed editorializing, including allegations of “flawed science” in the IPCC reports and yet another reference to the so-called “climategate.” Let’s get this straight, starting with the second item: there have thus far been three separate and independent investigations of the leaked emails, and each investigation has completely exonerated the scientists involved. Completely. If the print and broadcast media had any sense of responsibility, this fact would have received as much publicity as the original non-scandal. With regard to the flaws in the IPCC report —in a document thousands of pages long, mistakes are inevitable. If a miscalculation of glacial melt rates invalidates the entire report, then by analogy, an error of fact anywhere in the Wall Street Journal must invalidate everything in that day’s edition, including the stock market reports.
WarrenS
Beautiful video from the BBC's Blue Planet on reefs and the dangers they face.
Annoucements
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(All times Eastern!)
eKos diaries from Wednesday, October 13, 2010 |
Diary | Author | Time (Eastern) | Tags |
A More Ancient World (Biodiversity Diary Repeat): Measuring Oil Impact in the Gulf | matching mole | 8:12:51 PM | Gulf of Mexico, oil, BP, ecosystems, teaching |
Kennedy v. Foxx Debate. UnBelievable. Watch. | irmaly | 3:14:46 PM | Billy Kennedy, Virginia Foxx, AShe County, Debate, NC 5th congressional district |
Making Water Clean with Dirt (New 2 Minute Episode of Nourishing the Planet TV) | NourishingthePlanet | 1:15:34 PM | Africa, Agriculture, Environment, Farmers, Food safety |
More strange tales from the Republican war on science | DWG | 11:45:32 AM | climate change, climate change denial, climate zombies, Republican war on science, Michael Mann |
Energize US: In Billy Kennedy's Own Words (NC-05) | Energize US | 10:37:04 AM | Energize US, Billy Kennedy, NC-05, energy, wind |
Gulf Watchers Wednesday Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #408 | peraspera | 6:02:15 AM | Recommended, Oilpocalypse, BP, Deepwater Horizon, Macondo, Gulf of Mexico |
Victory! Local Wind Farm and Manufacturing Jobs by 2012 | Muskegon Critic | 12:00:09 AM | Recommended, Muskegon, Michigan, Wind farm, green power |
eKos diaries from Tuesday, October 12, 2010 |
Diary | Author | Time (Eastern) | Tags |
Climate Change News Roundup: 10|10|10 | billlaurelMD | 11:51:11 PM | Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, climate change, global warming, eKos, environment |
DelBene closing on Reichert. Let's pick up one blue. | rb137 | 11:39:44 PM | Suzan DelBene, DelBene for Congress, Wa-08, David Reichert, Election 2010 |
OR-1: Act Blue for Climate Heroes fighting Climate Zombies | A Siegel | 10:25:35 PM | climate change, global warming, ekos, climate zombies, david wu |
My Telephone Conference with Van Jones, Dolores Huerta & Pam Tau Lee | Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse | 8:34:45 PM | Recommended, Proposition 23, climate change, environment, ekos |
The Week in Editorial Cartoons - Exorcism, InsaniTea, and Helping Jerry Brown | JekyllnHyde | 5:51:32 PM | Recommended, The Week in Editorial Cartoons, eKos, Republican Party, Christine O'Donnell |
GOP Wrong: Green Means More Jobs Now | Steven D | 9:17:08 AM | ekos, Green Technology, Koch Industriels, California, Rescued |
PA-Sen: Toomey disputes and debates reality | Laurence Lewis | 9:00:02 AM | Pat Toomey, PA-Sen, 2010, climate change, eKos |